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Low-pay workers would welcome NY minimum wage hike

Posted at: 02/19/2013 6:21 AM
By: Associated Press

Workers who earn low wages making hotel beds, ringing up groceries, delivering pizza and tending tables in New York say the proposed hike in the state's minimum wage won't erase all their financial worries.

But it will help.

Lawmakers in Albany are considering a proposal by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to increase the state minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.75 an hour in July. Assembly Democrats proposed making it $9 an hour after President Barack Obama proposed in his State of the Union address last week increasing the federal minimum wage, also $7.25 an hour, to $9 in stages by the end of 2015.

Cuomo has described the current minimum wage as "unlivable." It works out to about $15,000 a year for full-time work.